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Statewide Family and Child Support Projects Get Giant Help

Dads from the San Francisco Giants, the Oakland Raiders, the San Francisco 49’ers, among others, posed with their kids recently to support responsible fatherhood. Staff members from two family support projects on campus were on hand to oversee the shoots and “put a face on the organizations” that asked for the baseball and football players’ help.

The organizations are the Child Support Project and the CalWORKS Family Planning Project, statewide media campaigns aimed at fostering personal growth and effective parenting skills. The photo shoots were part of a campaign to encourage fathers to take responsibility for and participate fully in their children’s lives. These sponsored projects, directed by Katie Milo, Department of Journalism chair, are managed by graduates of communication arts and journalism.

“The photo shoots were held after practice, so a lot of the players were still milling around the facilities and talking to the media. The players were enthusiastic about helping with the campaign,” said Alyssa Banks, Chico graduate and production manager for the projects.

Administered, shaped, and nurtured by Milo since their inception nine years ago, the two projects are examples of how everyone benefits from good partnerships. The communications skills and experience it takes to create the campaigns dovetail with the content of undergraduate education in journalism and communication arts.

CSU, Chico graduates are hired to work either as full-time staff (each project has two full-time staff members) or as part-time, technical support staff. Currently, Claudine Payne, who graduated from Chico with a B.A. in journalism and an M.A. in communication, manages the Child Support Project, and Debra Johnson, who graduated with a B.A. in international relations and an M.A. in public communication, manages the CalWORKS Family Planning Project.

Chico graduates in journalism and public relations, Heather Gregory and Alyssa Banks, are coordinators of the interagency agreement with Child Support Services. The staff get ample opportunity to apply and extend their skills as designers, layout and paste-up artists, journalists, translators, media specialists, public relations strategists, and client relations managers.

Milo’s classroom teaching benefits from the first-hand information she gets from her involvement in the projects, she says. The projects have also benefited from the practical input of her students. “Many of the parents we target are of the same ages as students in my public relations courses, and so I often test the message of a potential campaign for its age-appropriateness and effectiveness on my students. I use outreach material produced by project staff to illustrate theory and search for new campaign ideas among my students, as well.”

“Responsible Fatherhood” is one of the Child Support Project’s current campaigns. The staff members called the community relations departments of California baseball and football teams to solicit one team member willing to allow his photograph to appear on a trading card. Payne designed the trading cards to bear the photographs and the campaign’s theme message. The cards will be disseminated to public school students throughout California in coming months.

The CalWORKS Family Planning Project designs products such as the cards that are distributed to organizations that work with CalWORKS clients and pregnant and parenting teens. The products help the programs encourage young parents to access the educational, occupational, and medical resources they need to become self-reliant. Among the materials that the staff have produced are “To Do” list notepads, canvas bags, and notebooks, practical tools that recipients can use during job searches and when taking classes.

“One of the great things about working on the family planning project is that it forces you to think about life from a wide perspective. When we create a poster or brochure, it’s typically distributed to more than a million people living in California,” said Payne. The material is translated into seven languages, so the staff needs to think about how the imaging and design scheme will affect various audiences. “We have to ask how we can communicate effectively with women and men, old and young, and people from different ethnic groups. It’s a constant challenge to create the right message that is interesting for the reader, targeted to our goals, and politically appropriate at the same time,” said Payne.

The managers speak highly of Milo as a “great mentor” and the driving force behind the projects. “Throughout the years, she’s contributed her public relations knowledge and expertise. What I really like is that she’s always willing to give feed back, and she’s always encouraged our creativity,” said Payne.

“Katie gives the staff the freedom to be creative, hyper, and outlandish at times. She encourages everyone to think beyond the traditional government form of communication and to be independent, unique, and energizing,” said Johnson.

Despite significant changes in California’s economic and political climate since their inception, the projects have both been awarded impressive three-year contracts over the past nine years. The California Department of Social Services has just awarded a $600,000 annual grant to the CalWORKS Family Planning Project, and the California Department of Child Support Services has just granted $245,000 annually to the Child Support Project. These are strong votes of confidence in the projects’ goals and growth—and in the enormous contributions the participating students are making to important social causes.

Kathleen McPartland with Sue Reynolds